Show No Fear - By Marliss Melton Page 0,19
boots and the drizzle wetting her hair, Lucy cut a sidelong glance at Gus. She found his gaze alert, constantly moving, assessing their environment. Had she really thought she could do this without him? Heck, a part of being self-reliant was knowing how to use your assets, and Gus was definitely an asset she didn’t want to lose.
Vegetation thickened and rose up, creating a tangled wall on either side. The path became an erratic corridor surrounded by hedges too lush to penetrate. Then, finally, it closed over their heads, swallowing them.
The trail grew steeper and narrower as it rose vertically up the mountain. Rainwater had carved out the middle of it, turning the trail into a V-shaped gulley, murder on Lucy’s ankles, even in boots. She pushed herself, wondering how the others, those who didn’t exercise as rigorously as she and Gus, would fare.
On the heels of that thought, Bellini and the Turkish woman began to flounder. Lucy, Carlos, and Gus stepped up to help. Gripping the Turkish woman’s arm, Lucy was conscious of Deputy Buitre’s dark stare as he prodded them up the slippery clay path, offering no assistance.
As Fournier had predicted, they weren’t going to be afforded preferential treatment. This trek into the jungle might prove more arduous than any of them had bargained for.
They came abruptly upon a hacked-out clearing. Lucy breathed a sigh of relief to see five mules dozing in a circle around a mound of cloth sacks, hides quivering to keep the pestering insects off.
“Halt!” shouted the deputy. “Stand in a circle and remove all your clothing but your boots and undergarments.”
Damn, Lucy thought, reluctantly shrugging off her backpack, while ignoring Gus’s raised eyebrow.
“Throw your possessions into the center of the circle.”
“Commander, sir,” Fournier hedged respectfully, “could we keep our anti-malarial medication?”
“No.” Marquez’s reply was implacable.
Lucy was afraid of that. Now they would be at risk for contracting mosquito-borne malarial infection.
“Now your clothing,” the commander added. “Strip to your underwear and your boots.”
At least their intel had been right. They got to keep their boots. The FARC couldn’t afford to shoe them all, especially not the men, whose feet were bigger than the average rebel’s.
Lucy’s relief didn’t quite counter her self-consciousness at having to shrug off her sweater and pull down her pants. When Gus sidled over to block the men’s view of her, he was jabbed in the ribs by a kid no more than fifteen years old.
Intentionally humiliated, each UN team member was made to stand for an uncertain moment in their underwear. That morning, Lucy had removed the Band-Aid stuck to her hip. It would have gone unnoticed, anyway, as she stood with her back to the trees.
In his near-naked splendor, Gus once again inspired the commander’s suspicions. He circled Gus to examine his musculature. “You’re strong, eh?” he asked, punching him lightly in the stomach.
Gus’s abs flexed. “I lift weights at the gym,” he explained.
“You know how to shoot a gun?” the man asked.
“No, no,” Gus denied, lying. “I can’t see the target.”
Commander Marquez grunted. “I’ll be watching you,” he warned, his scruffy moustache twitching. Turning away, he barked orders that prompted soldiers to scuttle up with armloads of clothing. That was when Lucy realized two of them were girls.
Stepping into the stiff, itchy camouflage pants, she pulled them up to find them several inches too short. The green T-shirt she was given exuded a soapy smell that made her nose itch. Its soft fabric protected her from the chafing jacket that she buttoned up next. It would keep her warm in lieu of her sweater, which had been bagged, along with everyone else’s clothing.
“Mount the mules,” the commander ordered the minute they were dressed.
Assisted onto a burlap and leather saddle, Lucy groped for the horn as the mules swayed up the vertical path, their footing as uncertain as hers had been earlier. Oh, God. Maybe Gus had been right about fighting fire with fire. It wasn’t working.
But then she saw that Gus had it even worse. With his feet too big to fit into the stirrups, his only option for staying mounted was to squeeze the mule’s round belly between his knees and hold on tight.
Lucy’s gaze dropped to the knee-high, needle-sharp bamboo spears that lined the path, the product of machetes cutting through the overgrowth. If Gus were to fall, any one of those spears could puncture his chest.
They had just reached the crest of a hill when a clatter of gunfire ripped through the tangled growth, startling